"Oh Sure...NOW It's Cool." or How a Once Unpopular Slave Leia Sentiment is Now Cool...Thank the Maker!

Complaining about stuff. Will it make you popular? No. But will it maybe help to change things? You bet. When I saw the following video (below the jump) I felt vindicated.

(Then...selfishly and unrealistically, a little bit ripped off. It's more likely that there were a lot of us feeling the same way, slave leia fatigue was in the zeitgeist I think. But I think I'm the only nerd who really raged about it at the blog level way back when it got picked up by the Huffington Post over a year ago. I'm so embarrassed to even be trying to take credit, what a "misplaced geek rage" thing of me to do, but there it is. I said it. I feel a little bit better, if not like 10% more comic book guy-ish.)

So what's my point? Talking about stuff, nay, even complaining about stuff, does make a difference. Mostly, I haven't been blogging here because I've been too busy. I had to leave the protective bubble, the warm nest of academia after finishing my M.A. and...gulp...get a real job! "Freedom, horrible, horrible freedom!" 

Gone are the days when I could sit in my teaching office and spend my time writing about women in movies that I love and have it count toward my thesis or matter to my writing "career". (I almost got a book of essays on action heroines published almost FOUR years ago! How can it be so long ago now?) But I admit, a part of me just got so freaking tired of the backlash and so when I really did get busy, I saw it as a bit of a chance to get away from talking about stuff just before it turned cool, feeling the heat for it, and then having to watch as everyone else decided it was okay now. (Someone call humblebrag...see how I tried to slip one over one you? I practically just called myself a pioneer...gag.)

The Slave Leia backlash exhausted me when everything first went down. It's so funny to even say that anything "went down". I published an essay, first on Forces of Geek, then here, then it got picked up by a few websites, then I got like a million nasty emails and ten supportive ones. 
But here we are, a couple of years later, and Kaley Cuoco (Who I love, by the way.) makes a hilarious video about the very same subject I ranted and raved about, and the world can kind of collectively laugh at it and go, "Yeah, that's totally true." Of course, the video also spoofs freaks like me who get so wrapped up in film and pop culture that this stuff genuinely matters to us. But I can definitely take that in stride. Like most film-obsessed super nerds (Or any caliber of the super-obsessed, really.) movies to me are really about something else. I fixate on action heroines because there were times in my life when I was surrounded by some serious (and eerily dominant) male chauvinism. Action heroines blasting guns and dominating a movie screen seemed like the perfect counter-action to me in a world in which I was (I thought, back then.) powerless. 
For starters, I just really really really like all the movies that I obsess over. The silly ones, the good ones, the ones that are so bad they're a collective joke to most people. What can I say? It's what I like. Some people would say that makes me a sucker, that I plop down my ten bucks for every movie that traipses through the theater in which a woman holds a gun or has a cool slo-mo action scene. 
But in fact, it's why I miss writing here so much. Because that's still even a debate about whether or not it's "okay" for me to like that stuff and still be a feminist. Without naming names or getting into specifics, just this morning I couldn't sleep thinking about a conversation among several of my fellow female film critics via email I've been having this week. Or rather...one I've watched unfold because I've been too intimidated to chime in. 
One side says that Charlize Theron's character in "Young Adult" is a breath of fresh air because for one, a flawed and interesting three-dimensional character is onscreen doing something DIFFERENT. The other side says that unique female characters are portrayed so seldom that we shouldn't applaud it when they pop up as dysfunctional messes. 
"Young Adult" is a movie I've been dying to see and when I see it tonight or tomorrow, I'll be able to cast my own vote. I get the distinct feeling that I'll fall into the first category. The one that appreciates the performance and enjoys it. 
Like a lot of bloggers, critics and fangirl feminists, I struggle with the doubts and insecurities of hanging onto what I care about as I get older. The, "Oh just shut up!" sentiments of the masses. The voices in my head are sometimes those of the AICN messageboards, the people that used to make fun of me in junior high or even some of the baffled adults who used to look at me in grad school like, "You want to talk about WHAT now?"
But you know what? As Danny Glover might say, "I'm getting too old for this s*!t." I like this stuff. Even when I try to get away from it, I can't stop thinking about it. Every TV show I watch, I start writing essays in my head. I've been DYING to blog about a recent episode of "Castle" and Annie's hilarious send-up of "Santa, Baby" on "Community". So I'm un-shunning myself from this blog. Even though I get like nine nasty or negative comments that I delete (Yeah, I'm that girl.) for every one that's sane and/or positive, I like what I like. I miss writing about it. So I'm going to do it. 
Oh...and I'll let you know what I think about "Young Adult".